14 Responses

  1. Scott
    Scott at |

    Thanks for sharing the story. We debate the value of VDI in our company. I had a terrible experience in my previous company as the latency made productivity very difficult. So I have a mental hurdle to overcome at this point and I hope that as VMware's Horizon View 6.0 product improves, the experience improves. As a user right now, I will believe it is a viable option when I can actually see it work in a real world environment.

    Reply
  2. mattheldstab
    mattheldstab at |

    Michael-

    Good to hear about your high-latency experience. With Citrix acquiring FrameHawk, they have raised the bar in this space. I was at a technical conference last week put on by a Heavy-Citrix VAR, and the Citrix folks really made Horizon View / PCoIP look bad. They showed a recorded demo which included two Windows 7 virtual desktops running a YouTube video. The first was a FrameHawk-enabled XD7.5 desktop at 250ms, and the second was a Horizon View desktop with the same network limitations. The View desktop could only muster 1-2 fps, while the XD7.5 with FrameHawk was probably more in the teens (fps). I asked them about a possible "testing specs sheet" and they said they didn't have one. Seemed like a FUD-fest to me.

    Not really apples-to-apples (in terms of latency), but I took out my laptop and connected to my Horizon View 5.3 desktop via my hotspot (which was getting just south of 100ms in latency. I watched a YouTube movie trailer without much of an issue. I think some of the folks next to me began to somewhat doubt the video we just watched.

    Matt

    Reply
    1. jondwaite
      jondwaite at |

      I saw a similar 'demo' recently (at Citrix's Synergy conference in LA) and I asked the FrameHawk technical guys afterwards 'so what were the frame rate and build to lossless (BTL) settings chosen for the View desktop?' and got blank looks. I suspect BTL was set very high (possibly even 100%) to show View in the worst possible light. As Michael says these 'demos' can be slanted to make any product look better than the competition and I take them all with a very heavy pinch of salt.

      Reply
  3. Yury Magalif
    Yury Magalif at |

    Michael,

    Was it pure View PCoIP client or HTML5 access (browser based) that you used to access your Virtual Desktop on the plane?

    Sincerely,
    Yury Magalif

    Reply
  4. Newsletter: June 7, 2014 | Notes from MWhite

    […] VMware View from the Horizon at 38,000 feet and 8000 miles away This is a great blog article that Michael has written.  Using View from so high, and so far away, your desktop is pretty cool […]

  5. Virtual Desktops (VDI) on an Airplane | cloud-zebra.com
  6. Yury Magalif
    Yury Magalif at |

    Michael,

    I flew a week ago. Inspired by your blog and by Gunnar Berger's videos, I decided to try this up in the air. It worked well. Latency of 600-900 ms, bandwidth of 2-6 Mbits. Here is the video result:


    Sincerely,
    Yury Magalif

    Reply
  7. » VMworld Europe 2014 Keynotes Summary Long White Virtual Clouds

    […] VMware announced the Horizon Workspace Suite, which combines all of their End User Computing products, which will make it more easy to purchase and consume these products, although they are still separate products that will likely require professional services to integrate. Project Fargo and the Cloud Volumes addition will have some great benefits in the future for all environments as it will make it much quicker to deploy applications and use them anywhere, and on any device. Apps and end user delivery at the speed of life. So you can work where you want, when you want. Like in my article about The VMware View from the Horizon at 38,000 Feet and 8000 Miles Away. […]

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